


Back To The Start

by Ash_Dogen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 16:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12391506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Dogen/pseuds/Ash_Dogen
Summary: In the aftermath of A New Hope, a smuggler and a princess attempt to chart the course of a fledgling relationship in the midst of a war. Essentially, what might have happened had it taken Han and Leia a lot less than three years to realise how they felt about one another. An AU version of the Han/Leia relationship that will span and eventually go beyond the OT timeline





	Back To The Start

**HOTH**

**3 ABY**

"General Rieekan! Sir, we've established contact with the _Millennium Falcon_!"

The Alliance staff that had gathered in the command centre fell silent. Tension hung thickly in the air, all eyes were fixed on General Carlist Rieekan as he bustled toward the console at which Lieutenant Toryn Farr was stationed, crouching beside her seat and pressing a headset tightly to his ear so that he could listen to the garbled message that was being transmitted by the stricken freighter.

Leia rushed to stand at Rieekan's shoulder, grasping tightly onto the back of Toryn's seat in an effort to steady herself, straining her ears in a vain attempt to hear the message itself.

"There's too much interference," Carlist muttered. "Try to increase the frequency," he instructed Toryn, "the storm is affecting our signal."

Leia silently cursed the Alliance High Command's decision to relocate her unit to such an inhospitable world as Hoth; the planet's nightly snowstorms, like the one that was now pummelling the base, were proving to be a serious impingement on the operation that the Alliance was trying to establish on the planet.

"That's better," Carlist said as Toryn turned a series of dials on her console. "It's a coded message...the _Falcon's_ communication systems have been damaged so they're limited to short-range capabilities."

"Are they all okay?" Leia asked in as calm a voice as she could muster.

Carlist inclined his head toward her, his mouth twisted in both concentration and concern as he attempted to decipher the message that was being sent by the ship's crew.

"They're requesting that we have medical personnel standing by when they land," he answered gravely. "There's still a lot of static..." He shifted a little closer toward the console, gently manoeuvring a dial while the assembled crowd of Alliance personnel waited with baited breath. "Wait a moment," he murmured, having seemingly stumbled upon a clearer frequency. "they're transmitting their ETA... ten minutes out."

He handed the headset back to Toryn and rose upright from his haunches.

"That's about as much as I can make out," he said regretfully . "Lieutenant Farr, continue to monitor their approach, we may need to guide them in because of the conditions outside. And comm Commander Mellorn, tell her to have a triage unit assembled in the hangar in ten minutes...we don't know how many aboard the ship are hurt, nor how severely.

Leia hurriedly tried to blink away the tears that were now threatening to fall, to maintain her composure even as it teetered on the brink of crumbling.

_I should have gone with them._

The thought had reverberated in her mind since she'd watched the _Falcon_ lift off from Hoth two days earlier, a disturbing premonition that the ship was bound for disaster.

Three years spent amidst an unrelentingly brutal civil war had predisposed Leia to fear the worst whenever she was separated from those she cared about most. But an ominous sense of foreboding had settled within her, a nagging anxiety that something was horribly wrong. Time had seemed to pass interminably while she'd awaited the _Falcon's_ return, clinging to a tenuous hope that her fears on this particular occasion would be proven unfounded.

But when she'd been roused from a fitful sleep earlier that night by Carlist and summoned to the command centre when word of the _Falcon's_ plight had reached the base, that fragile hope had shattered.

_I should have gone with them...I should have been there._

The small crowd of Alliance officers that had gathered around Carlist began to disperse and file out of the command centre, muttering amongst themselves in hushed tones that sounded disconcertingly ominous to Leia in her panicked state. She felt dazed, strangely bereft of emotion now that the _Falcon_ was drawing ever closer; her feet began moving almost involuntarily, carrying her toward the hangar, determined to be the first thing that her friends saw the moment they disembarked the ship.

She sensed Carlist at her shoulder as she strode through the icy corridors of Echo Base, conscious of him scrutinising her as they walked. Leia had become accustomed to his attentiveness in the three years they'd spent as close allies within the Rebellion; though the agony of their shared losses remained too intense for either of them to acknowledge it, Carlist had become something of a father figure in her life, a constant presence with whom she had come to share a familial bond. And so he could discern her moods, recognise when she was affecting a facade to conceal how she really felt in times of crisis.

When they reached the hangar, Leia felt him take a hold of her arm and steer her away from the small crowd that were awaiting the _Falcon's_ arrival and toward a quiet alcove.

"You look very pale," he said concernedly. "Are you alright?"

Leia nodded, afraid that speaking might betray her efforts to maintain her wavering composure.

"I'm sure that they're all fine," he told her. "I know you won't believe that until you see them, but we both know that Han wouldn't let anything happen to Luke...if one of them is hurt then Niram will see to it that they get whatever treatment they need, so I don't want you to assume the worst has happened – they are all going to be okay."

Leia wanted so badly to be able to draw confidence from Carlist's surety; there was no hint of doubt in his demeanour, no reason to believe that he was simply trying to offer her false hope in a moment of anguish.

But her apprehension could not be assuaged.

"I should have stopped them from going," she said in barely more than a pained whisper. "Something is wrong, Carlist, I know it."

Before he could reply, someone amongst the awaiting assembly called out that the _Millennium Falcon_ was making its final approach toward Echo Base and Leia's heart leapt.

Then her fear spiralled into abject terror.

Carlist kept a firm but comforting grip on her shoulder as they rejoined the gathered Alliance personnel, doing away with the sense of propriety that he was usually so meticulous about upholding when they were both in the presence of others. They lingered on the edge of the milling crowd and Leia clasped her gloved hands together tightly in a futile attempt to prevent them from trembling.

_This is what you get for allowing yourself to believe that there was a future for you beyond this war...for letting yourself think that you and Han had a future beyond this war...you should never have let your heart rule your head, let love outbalance logic – you knew that if you did, if you loved him, you would lose him eventually._

Leia tried desperately to quell such cruel thoughts; she had promised herself nearly three years earlier that she would not regret the choice she had made to pursue a relationship with someone for whom she harboured feelings that simply could not be ignored or suppressed, that she could not deny the intensity with which she had been drawn to that person, whose love and devotion had sustained and healed her in the darkest moments of a young life that had been spent fighting for a cause to which she had already lost so much.

In spite of that, she had always refused to contemplate a future beyond the Rebellion.

But the euphoria of loving someone so completely, and being loved unconditionally in return, had eventually worn down her resolve to not think past an end to the war that she knew might never come.

Leia had concluded that such thoughts were not in any way daunting when she considered the possibilities of sharing everything that was to come with someone who was similarly reluctant to think beyond the present, but had nonetheless invested all of their own hopes for the future in her.

And so she had determined to not only fight for a better future for the galaxy, but also for the future she so desperately wanted to share with Han.

A future that she simply could not the bear the thought of losing now that she had embraced it so ardently.

The vexatious noise of half-frozen gears grinding into motion echoed loudly as the heavy shield doors began to slowly creep open and, over the sound of the fierce wind and snowfall that was raging outside, the roar of a ship's thrusters grew steadily louder.

"Han is going to be alright," murmured Carlist beside her, as though he'd somehow knew what she was thinking. "I promise you."

Leia did not offer a response, her eyes fixed on the _Falcon_ as it glided into the hangar, exhaling torrents of warm steam from its exhaust vents as the ship gently touched down.

As the boarding ramp began to lower, Leia immediately made for the ship but Carlist held her back.

"Let Niram and the medics go first," he told her, inclining his head to the small medical team that were already ascending the ramp, hurriedly guiding a hover-stretcher into the ship. "You'll see them in a moment."

While they waited for someone to emerge, as the first painful seconds stretched into agonising minutes, Leia took in the fresh damage that had been inflicted upon the _Falcon_ during its latest venture; black scorch marks flecked the already-dented plating while power conduits had been dislodged, exposing ruined chords and cables that now jutted out from the ship's hull.

"It probably looks worse than it really is," noted Carlist, though Leia thought his voice now lacked the conviction it had held only moments before.

"I shouldn't have let them go, Carlist," Leia repeated. "Ord Mantell is so dangerous."

Niram Mellorn, the base's Alderaanian chief media stepped onto the _Falcon's_ ramp then, leading two officers who were carrying a prone body from the ship on the hover-stretcher. Feeling Carlist release his hold of her, Leia began to jostle her way through the crowd, desperate to get to whoever who had been hurt.

It was Luke, seemingly barely conscious. Leia could not suppress a horrified gasp at the condition of his face; his nose had clearly been broken while two deep and bloody gashes ran down the length of his cheek. He appeared to be delirious, mumbling what sounded like nonsense words, and Leia took a hold of his prone hand, squeezing it gently.

"We've sedated him," Niram explained to her. "He's in shock, Your Highness, he needs to go to medical immediately so that we can administer bacta treatment."

Struggling to comprehend the apparent severity of the situation, unsure of whether Luke would be alright, Leia nodded numbly and stood aside, letting his hand slip from her's as he was carried away.

Amidst her haze of panicked uncertainty, Leia sensed Carlist was at her side again and heard him mutter a hushed exchange with Niram in their native dialect. She looked from one to the other, alarmed at the ashen pallor of their faces.

"Carlist," she murmured, almost pleadingly.

"Lelila."

There was a finality in his use of her nickname, one that her parents had fondly bestowed on her as a child, that somehow served as confirmation that Leia's very worst fear had now become a reality. A heavy silence had descended within the hangar, one of sorrow and disbelief, and Leia suddenly felt very exposed in the view of the watching crowd.

So she strode up the ramp and entered the _Falcon's_ access corridor. Ignoring the bloody bandages that had been discarded haphazardly on the deck and the nauseating sense of dread that had settled in the pit of her stomach, Leia made her way into the main hold and found neither Han nor Chewbacca there. Carlist was following her, pleading with her to listen to him but Leia brushed aside his efforts to console her and instead made for the ship's cockpit.

There she found only Chewie, slumped in his chair. The Wookie did not immediately acknowledge her presence; his elbows were braced upon his knees, his face cradled by two large paws as he warbled something that sounded to Leia like a prayer of some kind in a pained tone.

Upon witnessing Chewie's disconsolate demeanour and the empty seat beside him that should have been occupied by the _Falcon's_ captain, the tenuous control that Leia had kept of her emotions finally unravelled completely.

_This is what happens when you allow yourself to love_ , taunted that cruel voice within her subconscious. _You have no one to blame for this but yourself...Han is gone, and he's taken that future that you were naive enough to believe you could share with him._

"Princess." Carlist again laid a gentle hand over her shoulder. "Lelila, I am so sorry."

Leia collapsed to her knees in the doorway and wept.


End file.
